United States. Hotel thermostats are often manipulated to ignore a visitor's commands. This was found by a study conducted by The Wall Street Journal for the United States, showing that no matter how many times a guest sets the temperature, many hotels decide how long an air conditioning or heating unit stays on.
This increase in hotel-controlled thermostats stems from the installation of energy-efficient motion detection systems, which are replacing older mechanical thermostats. While guests could previously physically activate the air conditioner or heating unit, today's wave of advanced thermostat technology integrates the system completely into the infrastructure of the room itself.
Because of this, it seems that now using a touchscreen thermostat to change the temperature of a room is just for demonstration, as no change is presented.
"When it comes to thermostats, the world has evolved," Hilton vice president of operations Randy Gaines told WSJ. "We're getting far fewer complaints than we did years ago."
In theory, Hilton's focus on passive temperature controls benefits chain guests more than giving it full control over a room's thermostat. Restricting a guest's access to the thermostat also decreases the costs associated with hotel maintenance while avoiding potential disaster if the air conditioning condenser freezes.
Although many may see Hilton's climate control as a detriment to their hotel experience, the chain is not using this power intentionally to make its guests uncomfortable. According to the WSJ, the New York Hilton relies on a thermostat system that keeps rooms unoccupied at around 78 degrees in summer before automatically activating the air conditioning the moment a guest checks in.
The goal is to keep the rooms at a more reasonable level 74 degrees by the time the guest opens the door, which takes about five minutes. Hilton's new temperature system allowed it to reduce its energy consumption by 14 percent over the past eight years.
However, the study indicates that despite the seemingly well-intentioned efforts of companies like Hilton, many customers still prefer to have control over the thermostat. This desire has seen the creation of many "how-to" pieces intended to provide travelers with methods to replace a room's temperature control. Whether it's a dedicated Tumblr account or a simple discussion forum on one of the Disney Hotel pages, there is a wide range of solutions available.
However, hotels are capturing and installing blocks of override orders. On rare occasions, hotels are "getting better at scheduling devices," according to the WSJ report.
As thermostats grow smarter and hotels further refine their operation, the ambient temperature rigging will likely persist. The WSJ shows that some hotels have bad reviews on sites like Expedia or TripAdvisor, which were answered directly by the hotel, with a proposed solution.
As the final opinion of the study, it says that hotels are not in the business of singling out guests. If the thermostat becomes an epidemic without treatment, it will be the hotels themselves that decide to cannibalize their own industry, which would be a blatant mistake given the availability of alternatives such as Airbnb or VRBO.
Source: The Wall Street Journal.
